Posts from Side Dish

A month ago I was enjoying lovely French breakfast radishes in a winter-to-spring salad. As the new season further unfolds, I'm now slicing these little jewels into a salad inspired by the classic combination — radishes, butter, and salt. I've also added delicate microgreens, tart lemon, and fresh basil for bright spring flavor.

Springtime brings one of my favorite farmers market treats: tiny new potatoes. Their fresh flavor is delightful in a simple potato salad, like this one, which trades in mayo-laden dressings for a lighter sauce of tangy yogurt mixed with savory miso.

I'm always looking for ways to use another spoon or two of miso; after all, we can't eat miso soup every day. (Well, I probably could, but it still wouldn't use up that miso very quickly.) So I like to sneak it into salad dressings for an extra bite of umami and savory sweetness.

This hearty, refreshing salad takes about 15 minutes to make — no cooking, no excessive prep. If my taste buds could actually dance, they would definitely dance with every spoonful. Creamy feta and red wine vinegar add a delicious Greek twist to ingredients that are typically found in Central American dishes: black beans, corn, and cilantro. Make a big batch at the beginning of the week and you're all set.

We love our canning jars for everything from storing grains in the pantry to shaking cocktails in the park. But by far one of our most favorite ways to use our pint- and quart-sized canning jars is to pack them with salads. Yes, that's right, leafy green salads. Dressing goes on the bottom, veggies and other salad goodies get piled on top. Everything stays separate and dressing-free until you toss the salad together in the bowl — never eat another soggy lunch salad again. Even better, these salads last for days in the fridge so we can make a week's worth of lunches ahead of time.

Poppy seed dressing has a balance of sweet and tangy that I find completely irresistible. It's great on a Spinach and Strawberry Salad, makes a fun spin in a coleslaw, and also does wonders as a marinade for chicken. It's the Jack-of-all-trades of the salad dressing world.

This dressing is also surprisingly easy to make yourself. For years, it was so automatic to just pick up a bottle at the store that it never occurred to me that I could make it myself. Now that I have, I'm more smitten than ever.

I was inspired to make these potato "rafts" after seeing them in an old copy of Cook's Illustrated. I love how the potatoes fuse together in the oven and become supremely crisp, tender, and garlicky. I like to use sole or halibut on top, but any firm and flaky white fish will do, like cod, haddock, or striped bass.

When we wrote The Kitchn Cookbook, we knew we wanted to include a few popular recipes from the site. But, for the most part, we wanted to create a whole set of brand new recipes in our voice and style — a fresh bunch of good cooking for a brand new cookbook. This week we're sharing a few of those new recipes as part of our Simple Sunday Dinner Party menu.

This recipe for peppery, tangy red lentil balls in lettuce cups was a fun recipe to develop — and the idea for it came from a reader!

Here's a super quick dinner for your springtime arsenal — meaty sirloin tip steaks (sometimes called "charcoal steaks" or "knuckle steaks," depending on where you live) cook oh-so-quickly on a wire rack under the broiler, while the asparagus below soaks up all of the flavorful juices from the meat. An easy blender sauce with punchy chives and feta makes a great accompaniment.

Salad bars and the airport quick-grab kiosks have done the Spinach and Strawberry Salad a real disservice, I think. Done well — done properly — it's easy to see why this salad is such a classic. The greens are crisp and tender, and they should be slicked with just enough dressing to be interesting without overwhelming. The strawberries give a juicy burst of sweetness, the cheese adds its luxurious creaminess, and the almonds bring it home with some much-needed crunch.

This is the kind of salad that is fancy enough for a Mother's Day brunch, but also easy to whip together on a weeknight. For either scenario, and all those in between, Spinach and Strawberry Salad will serve you well.

Snap peas and mint from the farmers' market, a Meyer lemon from a friend's yard, and a couple of basic pantry ingredients – quick to prepare and speaking wholly of spring. I hesitate to call this a recipe because it's just something that came together using fresh ingredients I had on hand. But perhaps that is the best kind of recipe for this season, when the new, vibrant flavors call for simple preparations rather than long hours spent over the stove or in the oven.